Hi there, budding Internet artist! Thanks for joining this course, and welcome to the community!

Course Overview

This initiative was born out of my belief that creativity should not be - and was never meant to be - the prerogative of a few chosen individuals. Nor should creativity be limited to the institutional space of museums, galleries, and art fairs. The Internet provides a unique platform to engage a potentially global community in the creation of collaborative art, and I think there’s something pretty special about that. This course is an introduction to crowdsourced art, and an experiment in collective creativity. We will learn about crowdsourced art, discuss key examples, and - to see how creative collaboration works in practice - we will work together to develop a children's book about a snail called Hashtag and his adventures on the Internet. Participation in this project will not require too much time on your part (and you can be as involved as you'd like), but hopefully it'll be fun to work on and it will allow us to build a strong and supportive creative community!

If you haven't officially signed up yet, please take a moment to do so: being registered for the course ensures that we can all communicate and collaborate effectively.

Course Facilitator

Hi, I’m Ioana Literat. I’m a PhD Candidate at the USC Annenberg School for Communication, where I research - guess what - crowdsourced art! You can find out more about my academic work on my website. And when I’m not writing journal articles about crowdsourced art, Romanian revolutions, or R. Kelly’s Trapped in the Closet, you’ll probably find me in my garden, at the dog park, or maybe just on my couch watching Trapped in the Closet one more time. I look forward to connecting over email (ioanaliterat@gmail.com), Twitter (@ioanaliterat), or Facebook.

Our Community

You know the rules. They’re the same things your mom has been telling you since the first day of kindergarden. Be nice. Assume good intentions. Criticize without being mean. Don’t leave before dinner is finished (which in our case translates to: please don’t leave the course before it’s over, because we’re counting on you for the collaborative children's book project! And we would miss you, really.)

Our course is designed to reflect the P2PU values: openness, community and peer learning. I am here to guide you along and to provide you with support and feedback if you need it, but the most valuable insights and experiences will come from your interactions, your collaboration, and your collective development as a creative community. Read more about the P2PU pedagogical model here.